


The Princess in the Tower

by MiriamKenneath



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, F/M, Mustafar (Star Wars), No Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-10 02:10:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19898167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiriamKenneath/pseuds/MiriamKenneath
Summary: To punish her parents for helping foment rebellion against the Empire, Leia is given to Vader in marriage.





	The Princess in the Tower

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ambiguously](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambiguously/gifts).



‘We won’t let this stand. We will speak to the Emperor.’

Princess Leia Organa usually showed more respect towards her mother, but in this instance she could not refrain from rolling her eyes at her mother’s words. ‘It was Palpatine’s decision,’ said Leia. ‘He won’t change his mind.’

Put simply, Breha and Bail Organa had been found out. Though facially loyal to the Empire, as they’d been to the Republic which had preceded it, they had been fomenting rebellion in secret, working on building an alliance which might someday rise up against Imperial tyranny and overthrow Palpatine’s regime. They still weren’t entirely certain who or what betrayed them, but in the end it didn’t matter.

Retribution was swift and putative. Their home planet of Alderaan was placed under strict martial law. Leia’s father was removed from the Senate, and her mother was reduced to a figurehead monarch. Both also expected to stand trial for treason, the punishment for which was death. And as for Leia herself?

Leia was to be given in marriage to the Empire’s chief enforcer Darth Vader. This was meant as a further guarantee of her parents’ continued obedience as well as an example to others who might be tempted to follow in their rebellious footsteps. Naturally, Leia herself was not given a choice in the matter, and it went without saying that she was something less than happy about the match.

‘We’ll figure something out. We promise. In the meantime, just… _please_ …keep out of trouble. And don’t make Vader angry,’ admonished her father.

Leia was good at making other people angry – even when she did not intend to. This had always been one of her chief talents. ‘Yes, father,’ she said, a picture of perfect filial obedience.

Vader didn’t, apparently, believe in weddings. Or ceremonies. Or meeting his betrothed beforehand.

Instead, he simply sent a small droid-piloted ship to collect her.

‘Your marriage certificate,’ said the droid, handing Leia a datapad officiously. Leia thumbed the datapad on and examined the document – notarised on Coruscant and legally binding. There was no mention made of a cooling off period or the correct procedure for seeking annulment or termination. It was probably safest to assume that divorce wasn’t an option.

‘Where are you taking me?’ Leia asked.

‘That is classified, I’m afraid,’ replied the droid.

Resigned, Leia boarded the ship. She carried nothing on her person, nor did she bring anything with her. Personal property was forbidden to her – in this, she was more like a prisoner than a new bride. She would, she’d been informed, be provided with everything she might require by her husband in any case.

The journey was uneventful. The droid made small talk which Leia tuned out and forgot. But when they left hyperspace and began to make planetfall, Leia realised with a sinking feeling she knew exactly where she was being taken. There was, as far as she was aware, only one habitable planet in the galaxy which looked like _that_.

Mustafar.

And so it was. This hellscape of smoking hot black sands, glowing orange lava rivers, showers of sparks and falls of ash was where Vader made his home. Where Leia would have to make her home as well.

Perched atop a lavafall, the ebon tower loomed monstrously tall over Mustafar’s hellscape. Buildings were neither good nor evil – only the people who built them could claim the mantle of such labels – but if ever there were architecture which could be labelled evil, it had to be this tower.

The ship docked on a landing pad jutting out over the sheer drop of the lavafall. Leia gathered her courage and disembarked with as much dignity as she could manage.

She needn’t have bothered. The landing pad was otherwise empty. Vader had not deigned to come out of his tower to greet her.

She’d been given her own private quarters, which were comfortable but not lavish, and all of her meals were delivered to her. That first night, she’d lay in bed, clutching the sheets, anxiously awaiting the arrival of her husband and steeling herself for what he might wish to do – to take from – her.

Vader never appeared. Nor did he appear the second night. Or the third. Or any night of any of the four weeks to follow. Leia didn’t even know if Vader was in residence on Mustafar at all.

Dread turned to boredom. Although she was not allowed access to the outdoors (and on a planet like this one who would want a riverside stroll?), she was Vader’s wife, and as Vader’s wife her privileges included freedom of the tower.

So Leia began to explore. You’d never think such a big, tall tower could be so _empty_. But so it was. The interiors were austere, cold and mostly unused. There were a handful of guards, servants and droids, but Leia had little cause to interact with them, and they never spoke to her except in the most perfunctory, empty of phrases.

In the middle of the fifth week, she came across a room deep underground which contained a mysterious black sphere. She’d never seen anything like it. The sphere was completely enclosed; there did not appear to be either ingress or egress. She approached cautiously. When nothing happened, she rested her palms on it, feeling for invisible seams. It felt warm. _Alive_.

It split open at her touch, with the sharp, sucking hiss of a pressurised airlock.

Vader! Vader was inside…and it occurred to Leia in the brief second before her vision went dark then that she’d done the thing she’d promised her father she wouldn’t do: She’d made Vader angry.

‘Such curiosity as yours is unwise.’

Leia blinked to clear the fog from her vision. She was laid out on the bed in her private quarters. She didn’t remember how she’d got there, but given that _Vader_ loomed uncomfortably close to her bedside, there was an obvious inference in that particular respect to be made.

‘Why have I not seen you?’ asked Leia in an unsubtle attempt to change the subject.

‘I did not think you would wish my company.’

That was a surprise to hear…even if it _was_ true. ‘I did not think my wishes were a matter of your concern.’

‘They are not,’ said Vader. At least they knew where they stood. Leia had nothing to say in response to that. ‘The Emperor is not concerned with your wishes _or_ mine,’ he added, like an afterthought more than half-addressed to himself.

Then Vader left, and Leia had only her thoughts to keep her company. Had Vader been given a choice in this marriage? It seemed not.

He did not want her. He wasn’t attracted to her. In fact, he wasn’t the least bit interested in her. Full stop. Leia was almost _offended_.

Another month passed. Leia’s boredom intensified.

She wasn’t supposed to go outside, but for lack of anything better to do she’d started bending the rules and going out onto the landing pad where she’d first arrived. She’d walk around the perimeter. She’d gaze down at the lava river and the magnificent falls, feel the scorch of its heat on her skin, listen to its furious roar. Or she’d gaze off into the poisonous red and black horizon. Or sniff the sulphurous breezes which swirled unpredictably around the tower.

Why did Vader choose to live on this hellish planet? Surely he wasn’t actually born here…?

An especially powerful updraft whipped her dress and hair and lifted her momentarily off of her feet. She laughed – her first bit of fun since her marriage to Vader. If it weren’t for the infernal heat, she could almost imagine that she was standing in one of Alderaan’s picturesque alpine meadows, where a warm wind might presage a drenching summer storm…

The storm was on her in a trice, and because this was Mustafar, the sky did not rain water. It rained droplets of fire.

Stray strands of her hair, blown free of her braids by the sulphurous breeze, were already burning. The acrid stench filled her nostrils. She tried to protect her head and face with her arms as she ran, but now her dress was smouldering too, and blisters were rising on her arms –

Shelter. Safety. Inside the tower. It was so close, yet so far away. The bottoms of her shoes were melting from what had already fallen to the ground. The soles of her feet were scorching hot. She was screaming; she wasn’t going make it –

And then she was being lifted, carried, flying – ? Back into the tower where it was dark, cool, _safe –_

 _Vader_. Vader had saved her.

‘Those burns will need looking at.’

He carried her to a level of the tower which contained what could only be called a top-of-the-line medical facility with a total immersion bacta tank. Leia’s injuries were superficial, fortunately, and the deepest wounds were to her dignity, so the facility was definitely overkill…or, rather, overkill for her.

Vader’s suit had sustained damage on all four limbs, she noticed, but beneath the charred leather which normally covered his arms and legs, there was no flesh whatsoever. There was only machine. Prostheses.

Leia felt a sudden surge of pity. He was not the invulnerable enforcer that he seemed. He had been grievously injured at some point in his past. The suit was a life support suit; he required a respirator to breathe. He needed this medical facility and that bacta tank. He must have had a hard life. Leia’s own pampered existence as a princess of Alderaan did not compare.

And. Well. Vader had never taken advantage of her, had he? Nor had he harmed her, not even in anger. What if being married to him was not the worst of fates? The reality of it hardly bothered her now. She wondered whether the amputations of his legs extended as far as his upper thighs and his –

‘I had a daughter. She would have been your age if she had survived.’

‘You – ’

‘I have duties I must attend,’ interrupted Vader before Leia could fully process this disclosure. ‘You should remain here under observation tonight. I will visit you again in the morning.’

But that wasn’t what happened. Someone did come to visit Leia in the morning in her tower, but that someone wasn’t Darth Vader.

‘I’m Luke Skywalker. I’m here to rescue you.’


End file.
